Forensic Engineering
Forensic Engineering
by Stephen E. Petty, President
EES Group, Inc. is proud to present the release of our newly-published textbook, Forensic Engineering: Damage Assessments for Residential and Commercial Structures, edited by Stephen E. Petty, EES Group, Inc., and published by CRC Press.
This textbook is a compilation of knowledge gained from hands-on education, training, and experience based on over 7,000 field investigations. It is a comprehensive resource that builds a bridge between engineering disciplines and the building sciences and trades, and provides an extensive look into the world of forensic engineering. With a focus on investigations associated with insurance industry claims, this textbook describes methodologies for performing investigations that include the causation and origin of damage to residential and commercial structures and/or unhealthy interior environments and adverse effects on the occupants of these structures.
The main features of Forensic Engineering: Damage Assessments for Residential and Commercial Structures include:
- 23 topics in forensic engineering based on thousands of actual field investigations.
- Proven methodologies based on engineering and scientific principles, experience, and common sense to determine the cause and origin of forensic failures pertaining to residential and commercial properties.
- References of many codes, standards, technical literature, and industry best practices.
- Detailed and informative examples, utilizing color photographs and figures, of industry best practices versus improper installations.
- Information from a multitude of resources into one succinct, easy-to-use reference book.
Edited by an industry expert with more than 30 years of experience, and authors with more than 100 years of combined experience in the field, this textbook takes the technical aspects of engineering and scientific principles and applies them to real-world issues. It provides readers with the experiences, investigation methodologies, and investigation protocols used in, and derived from, completing thousands of forensic engineering investigations. The textbook begins with providing a baseline methodology for completing forensic investigations and closes with advice on testifying as an expert witness. Visit http://www.crcpress.com to order your copy today!
- Quality assurance inspections include visual roof inspections during construction or annually after construction, quality control inspections to ensure that specifiers and installers are following code and best practices, moisture surveys to locate the cause and origin of leaks, destructive testing to determine the cause and origin of damage, expert witness support should the issue advance into the legal world.
- Structural damage typically occurs as the result of impact from fallen trees or limbs, vehicles, long-term water infiltration, fire, blasts/explosions, improper modifications of framing members, improper design and/or construction, or the exceedance of design loads
- Damage assessments involve evaluation of load history, materials affected, and physical properties and conditions of members and connections.
- Physical conditions of framing members and connections may be influenced by many factors.
- Complex structural issues often require complex analysis.
- Computer software is utilized to re-create and analyze existing structures under different loading scenarios.
- Determining the cause(s) of failed framing members/systems typically requires a determination and evaluation of load history on the structure, construction materials, physical properties and conditions of the framing members and connections, and original framing orientations/configurations and connections.
- It is important to consider all possible scenarios when determining the likely cause of the failure/collapse of the structural framing members/systems being investigated.
- The key factor of many structural failure investigations is to compare the actual loads at the time the failure occurred to the in-place capacities of the structural framing members/systems.